“None at all, I imagine,” answered Shelley. “Still, it’s a formality that we have to go through. Some damned fool of a coroner would kick up a fuss if we didn’t, anyway, and we have to observe all the rules.”

“Well,” said the doctor, after quite a perfunctory examination, “there’s no doubt about how the poor devil died, anyhow. That stab penetrated right through, just grazing the heart.”

“He would have lived for a short time afterwards, I suppose?” said Shelley.

“Oh, yes. He would be unconscious in three or four minutes,” replied the doctor. “But before unconsciousness came on he’d probably be able to be quite active, able to walk and all that sort of thing, you know.”

“He walked quite a considerable distance,” said Shelley, and explained the way in which, together with Sergeant Cunningham, he had tracked the man across the forecourt.

The doctor nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “He’d bleed a good deal, of course. Still,” he added in more cheerful tones, “this is one of the few cases in which there’s none of that damned argument about rigor mortis. Why, the fellow’s not been dead half an hour yet.”

“No,” said Shelley. “I can’t think how the murderer got out.”

There was a scurrying outside the door of the room in which they were talking, and Shelley hurriedly strode over to it.

“What the devil’s all the row about?” he asked, and Cunningham hurried up to him.

“A most amazing thing, sir,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Shelley.

“I’ve just seen someone in Great Russell Street, outside the railings, sir,” he replied.

“That’s not surprising,” said Shelley. “After all, with all this activity going on, I expect we’ve got about half London walking about looking at us. It isn’t every day that the curious-minded Cockney gets a chance of seeing Scotland Yard at work.”

“Oh, but that isn’t what I mean, sir,” said Cunningham. “I saw a man connected with the case. He ran, and managed to get away before I was able to lay hands on him.”

“Explain yourself,” roared Shelley, quite losing patience at last. “Who is it that you saw in Great Russell Street, and allowed to get away from you?”

Cunningham lowered his voice to a suitable pitch of impressiveness. “Mr. Henry Baker,” he said.

Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII

The Question of the Will

Shelley managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep, and was up betimes the next morning. He splashed about in a cold bath, and then had a rub-down with a rough towel, this procedure being the best remedy he knew for making up for lack of sleep.

Then he went around to Scotland Yard, to face an equally tired and sleepy Cunningham.

“Look here, Cunningham,” he said, “there’s only one thing that strikes me about this case.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cunningham obediently, and waited for further instructions.